Intelligent CISO Issue 05 | Page 67

Are physical security features still needed on identity documents? Counterfeited IDs are a concern Reports show that even the most secure physical ID documents can still be subject to counterfeiting, particularly aspects of the material document, such as the cardholder’s image or other personalised information. www.intelligentciso.com | Issue 05 The reason for this is simple – not all law enforcement agencies and private sector companies are equipped with proper electronic devices and software to validate highly secure ID documents, such as national IDs. The main challenges when checking a document without any device is the ability to do it: • Quickly. Border control officers have between seven and 12 seconds to raise doubts on the document’s authenticity • Effectively. A passport data page usually bears more than 20 security features, thus checking all of them is practically impossible. Selecting only a few to look at leaves the viability of that document still in question • Simply. Even if an on-card security feature is industrially perfect and impossible to reproduce identically, making that security feature too complex – such as is the case with the latest generation of holograms – can make it too difficult to verify in the field 67 At a time of strong data encryption, on-chip biometry checks, digital signatures or national public key directories (N-PKD), one can question the necessity of adding advanced physical security features on a passport or an identity card, says Vincent Gourmelen, ID Card Solutions Product Manager, Citizen Identity Solutions. But he argues that physical security features do still have a role to play when it comes to identity documents.